Final Vengeance: Discovery
by LeonhardEuler
Summary: When a demigod's extraction goes horribly wrong, then becomes the first demigod in decades to not be claimed, their camp experience didn't start off too well. However, as they struggle to find out who they are outside of their parentage, they come across an enemy hidden in the shadows. In the end, they will be asked one question: Has the time finally come for the Olympians to fall?
1. Chapter 1

**Sarah**

The shrill screech of the alarm pierced through my room, forcefully retrieving me from my sleep. I opened my eyes and felt like someone had spent the last 8 hours rubbing them with sandpaper. Groggily, I flopped my arm at the alarm to snooze it. Eventually, my feet found the floor and I rubbed my eyes.

I looked over at the time and realized that it was 7:20. _Damn_ , I thought to myself. If I got another tardy I was going to be in trouble. Not that I cared, but who wants to stay after school? I ran around my room, getting dressed as fast as I could. In no time, I had eaten breakfast, gotten dressed, brushed my teeth, and was out the door. Of course, I forgot my backpack.

Luckily, my first period was freshman gym. I got changed as I made some small talk with the other girls. We got into our assigned lines, as our gym teacher came out into the gym. He was a middle aged man, but his body didn't show it. He was muscular, with sharp facial features and short hair. He looked like a marine.

"Alright, start your warm up."

I didn't say a word throughout the entire warm up. I wish I had some of my friends in this class, but they're all in the 3rd hour gym. A fair amount of the kids in this class were in the "popular group". They are so worried about who likes them or who is doing what - which is pretty much everything I try not to be. Unfortunately, that doesn't get you a ton of friends.

After 15 minutes of skips and stretches, we finally finished. We huddled around the coach. "Today, we'll continue playing soccer. Team 1 plays team 4 on field 1, team 2 plays ..."

I am team one, so I kinda tuned out after that. I heard team 4 was really good, but I can't remember who was really good on their team. My team was alright. We had a couple of basketball players who played defence, a very athletic girl who was one of our better players, and some normal kids. I played keeper and we had one soccer player, who was pretty good. He nudged me in the side.

"Hey, watchout. They have a really good player on their team. Don't get too relaxed out there."

I nodded my head, but I wasn't too worried. I mean, very few of the kids actually knew how to play anyways.

The fields we used were for 12 year olds, so it wasn't full size, but it was a good 80 yards long. The goals were of decent size, however I could touch the cross bar without jumping. We got there first so we got to pick our side. The other team came and I was quite surprised. They didn't look stacked at all. They had one kid with raven black hair and a lean build. I think his name is Liam. That must have been who my teammate was talking about, but he didn't seem much more athletic than our guy.

Our gym teacher threw a ball into our field and it rolled towards them. One of the kids tapped it to Liam, and he passed it back. My team moved up as the game was on. The game was very clumsy, with people running into each other, accidentally passing to the other team. Unfortunately, Liam got the ball before our soccer player did. He flew past our defenders, beating them with a single touch to either side and before I knew it I was staring him down.

He ran straight at me and I didn't know what to do. If I stood still, he would just tap it to the side. But if I ran out at him he could just beat me like he did to our defenders. I decided to rush him, but as soon as I started running towards him he slammed the ball into the back of our net.

For the rest of the game, he almost always had the ball at his feet. Every single pass was to Liam. He'd chase down whoever had the ball, steal it from them and then dribble a couple of people. He'd pass it off lightly, and then run around someone. They'd pass it to him and he'd continue dribbling.

I had the worst of it. He made an absolute fool of me. No matter what I did, he beat me without breaking a sweat. If I charged him, he'd either shoot while I was running or just take a touch around me. If I stayed in the goal, he would just get close enough that I had no chance of stopping it.

After what felt like all day, our coach gave a two minute warning. Liam had started setting up his teammates because they were winning by so much. It was easily 9-2 or 10-2. A passed it across the goal to a short nerdy kid who kicked it straight into the goal from a few feet away.

From the kickoff, our soccer player got the ball and started dribbling. He used a couple fancy tricks, I couldn't even describe what he was doing. He ran around the sides to avoid Liam, but Liam ran him down and took the ball. He passed it to a defender and ran towards our side as his teammate gave him the ball again. He weaved in and out of our players as he charged down the right side.

I was determined to stop him this time. Just as he got inside the goal box, I charged him. He was at the corner of the goal box, so he didn't really have anywhere to shoot. He cut inside and I moved to cut him off. I ran full speed at him and thought I had him. He stopped the ball with his left foot and rolled it to his right foot as he spun around me. I tried to stop myself, but I ran right past him.

As he tapped the ball into the net, our coach blew the whistle. Liam was breathing heavily, and just stood in the goal with his hands on his hips catching his breath. He looked over at me, gave a small smile and started to walk back to the school.

Two excruciatingly unextraordinary hours later, it was finally lunch time. I got a lunch of pizza, pretzels, and a cookie. I sat toward a table where my friends are sitting. My friend group is small, but they're really cool. A couple of them actually just moved here this year, but since I just moved up to high school I got all new friends anyways. I'll miss my middle school friends, but most of them either joined the popular crowd or go to different schools.

Anyways, first there's John. He's a little on the shorter side, but athletic, with light brown hair and thoroughly normal brown eyes. He's also constantly on my case about trying harder, and doing better in school. Secondly, there's Bartholomew but we all call him Bart. He has rusty orange hair, and can already grow facial hair. I'm not sure whether his short or tall, cause he has a slight slump that comes from his legs. He also walks with kind of a limp, but he's adapted really well to it. The only thing more unique than his name is his personality. He has the morals of a hippie, the macho nonsense of a football player, and the

Then finally there's Andrew. He's tall, with bleach blonde hair and hazel eyes. Andrew is skinnier than a twig and is probably the biggest nerd that I know. He has a natural knack for video games, and every time we play he destroys us. He's pretty smart, but just hasn't found his stride just yet.

"Hey, how's it going guys?" I ask as I sit down.

"Nothing much." They chorused in the most unsynced way possible. I looked over at Bart, who was scribbling furiously on a piece of paper.

"Ha, is that the math homework for tonight?" I asked,

"Yeah, Yeah I know. I got busy last night."

"Speaking of math, we're getting those projects assigned today, right?" John asked. Mr. Woodhaven, our math teacher, had warned us we were going to have to do a project on a mathematician. He was going to assign partners randomly today.

"Uh, Yeah I think." I said.

"Who are you going to do it on?"

"I don't know, my partner will probably know."

"I'm wanna do it on Archimedes, the Greek Geometer." John said, as if him being Greek made him the most interesting mathematician in the world. Not saying much, but still. John had a strange fascination with Greek culture.

"Well I'm just gonna wing it."

"Like always." Andrew said. I just shrugged my shoulders at that.

"Hey, speaking of math, did you know that Liam played soccer?"

"Liam who?" John asked.

"Average height, black hair. I don't know his last name."

An expression flashed over John's face, but it disappeared before I could decipher it. Bart shifted uneasily in his chair.

"Oh, him. That dude creeps me out big time." John replied.

"He looks like a serial killer." Bart said.

"Hey! Be nice." I shot back."Anyways, I played against him in gym today and he destroyed us. I had no idea how athletic he was."

"He doesn't exactly look out of shape." John said.

"No, but he was really fast. He literally beat everyone by tapping it around them."

John and Bart exchanged a look. "We had no idea he played soccer."

"See ya, Andrew." I said, as he walked down the hall. His next class was on the opposite side of the school. The rest of us had the same fourth hour, so we walked together. The usual small talk dominated the conversation as we made our way towards the room. I was still trying to decipher their weird behavior at lunch.

We had World History fourth hour. However, we were going over Greek History so John was very excited. It actually was somewhat interesting, but I have to admit John's enthusiasm has gotten a little bit old. We took our seats in the back, with me on the left, John in the middle and Bart on the right. The room was buzzing with conversation as the teacher just stared at his computer screen. The second bell rang, and the conversations died down a little bit.

"Alright, let's get started." The teacher said as he stood up. He was middle aged, with black hair and a face that really showed his age. He wore a button up shirt and jeans everyday. He looked more like an office worker for an up and coming "hip" tech company than a teacher.

He clicked a little remote and the projector that hung from the ceiling turned on. On the board, the beige PowerPoint slide appeared. In plain, black letters it said "Bronze Age Greece". John had his eyes glued to the slide, while I began to absent mindedly doodle in my notebook. He taught straight out of the book, so I usually just read the textbook that night.

"First a review question. Sarah," I tried to keep my face from showing any reaction as I looked up. Most of the kids were looking at me, as if expecting some response from me. I thought through what I'd been doing, trying to think of something wrong I must've done. "Name Three Greek cities."

Oh, he wanted to ask a question. I sighed, because only he would ask a question like that. He has a really bad habit of asking common sense questions. "Um, Sparta, Athens, and…. Corinth?"

"Very good, moving on."

I hated when he called on me. Every class, he picks a few students and only asks them questions. I guess that means I'll actually have to pay attention this time. Right out of the gate, too.

"Today we're going to learn about the Trojan War. "

 _At least the lecture was going to be interesting_ , I thought. He talked about the mythology of the Trojan War; First about Eos and the apple, then Paris and the beauty competition, and finally how he absconded with Helen to Troy. As he talked about Achilles, I wondered how it would feel to be invincible. It'd be pretty awesome.

"Trevor, who killed Achilles?"

"Uhh, Hector?"

The class kind of snickered. Trevor was known to be a little spacey, and never knew what was going on.

"Now now, he wasn't entirely wrong. Achilles and Hector did duel, however, Achilles killed Hector. Paris was the one who killed Achilles. He shot him in the heel with an arrow."

He continued on about how they believed Apollo guided the arrow, and about the massacre at the temple of Apollo, the disease they believed he brought upon them. As he went on and on, I just had to ask. I raised my hand.

"Sarah?"

"So if these events actually happened, how come most of them involve Gods and Goddesses?"

"Great question, and this is an important lesson to learn about the Greeks. Often in their literature the Greeks would tell stories where Gods and Goddesses influenced real life events. However, when reading these stories, the modern reader recognizes that the Gods and Goddesses are just metaphors for the events that really transpired. Apollo symbolized the spread of disease, Ares the mayhem of combat, and Poseidon the storms that ravaged the coasts."

"Thanks."

John gave me a smug look, and I shot a puzzled one right back at him. He went back to taking notes, but he was still smirking. The teacher continued on about the war, and I did my best to not doze off.

Finally, I arrived at math class. My day kind of resembled a video game. It started off with gym, the easiest class, and then progressively got hard. Math was the final boss of the day. I didn't like math at all, but the fact that it was my last class of the day made it easier to swallow.

I took my seat and nodded a greeting to Liam.

He returned the gesture.

"Alright, pick a partner, and then write your names next to a mathematician written on the board. I have the laptop cart in the corner over there. Find your partner and "

The classroom was taken over by the buzz of conversation as people scrambled to pair up with their friends. I didn't really know anyone in this class, so I just kind of sat there awkwardly. I was just about to just pick someone random when I felt someone nudge me. I looked over and saw Liam looking at me expectantly.

"Wanna pair up?" He asked. His voice was low, like the sharpening of a heavy blade. It was kind of unnerving. Even with such an innocent question, his voice made it sound like there would be dire consequences if I said no.

"Sure." I said. I took a good look at him. I had never really paid any attention to him before. He had neatly trimmed black hair that was so dark I wondered if he dyed it. His facial features, especially his jaw and cheekbones, were defined as if they were chiseled from stone. As a 15 year old, he looked like a 30 year old villain from a detective movie. The look was ruined by his jeans and soccer jersey.

We went up to the board and he picked up a marker. He looked over the list once and wrote our names down. I looked over and read the name.

I arched an eyebrow. "Euler?"

"Yeah," He said, "He had a huge influence in many areas of math and science. He should give us material to work with."

 _Whatever_ , I thought. How he knew that, I had no idea.

He grabbed the computers and we sat down in our seats. I opened it up and asked me for a password. Someone else's username appeared above the box, but I couldn't figure out how to change the user. He leaned over and hit the escape button and two boxes appeared.

"Thanks" I said.

He nodded back and logged into his computer.

"How are we going to break this up?" I asked.

"I was just thinking about that. You have the rubric?"

"Yeah." I opened my notebook and handed it to him. He opened the wikipedia page for Euler and scrolled through it quickly.

"Alright, so it should take about 6-7 minutes to get his early life, around 21-23 minutes for his education, probably 40-43 minutes for his impact, and finally about 13-14 minutes for his biographical information. I can take either his impact, or the other three parts it doesn't make much of a difference."

"How do you figure the times?"

"I estimate a lot."

That wasn't exactly the answer I was looking for, but I decided to drop it.

"I'll take the early life, education, and biographical information. I don't want to deal with any math"

"Okay."

I went to wikipedia, and started reading through the page. We researched in complete silence. I would occasionally ask Liam a question, and he'd answer it. He seemed to be completely entranced by the computer as if his life depended on him finding out everything about some swiss mathematician.

"You play soccer?"

"Yeah."

"On the high school team?"

"I play high school in the fall and on a travel team in the spring." His eyes never left the screen as his scrolled through the page.

"You play forward?"

"I play center attacking midfield. Similar, but fairly different in its own regards."

"Yeah, I'm not built athletically enough to play sports."

"Ah, nonsense. Athleticism is a state of mind." He gave me a meaningful look. "Athleticism is a mindset. With hard work and some desperation, you can accomplish anything."

"Pfft, that sounds like some self-help crap that a teacher would tell me."

He gave a chuckle, which sounded like thunder rumbling in the distance. I could see how John and Bart were scared of him. There was definitely something off about him. I was determined not to be bothered by it though. He turned back to his computer.

"I believe," I continued. "that a person is born with skills; strengths and weaknesses."

He smirked. "With that philosophy, you'll only be as good as you tell yourself you are."

"If you say so."

"I do."

We worked in silence for a little bit. I finished reading through the page, and looked at the time. It was almost exactly 45 minutes since we started.

"Damn," I told him. "You hit that timing right on."

"Yeah, we got distracted for a minute or two there, so we weren't exactly on schedule."

"I count one or two minutes off as a success."

"It's decent."

I shook my head. I got the feeling he was a bit of a perfectionist.

"So can you wanna head to the library after we're done? Start writing up the powerpoint?" I asked.

"I have a soccer game this evening, so today won't work. Does tomorrow work?"

"Yeah, sure. What time?"

"Anytime after 5:30 will do."

"How about 6:00? At the district library?"

"Sounds good."

The teacher spoke up from the front of the room. "Time to pack up guys."

Liam closed up his laptop, and turned to me.

"Here, I'll take yours up."

I was packing up my bag when the bell rang. _Finally_ , I thought, _school is over._ I hurried up, and headed towards the door.

 **John**

Bart and I headed back to the hotel. We knew we had to talk, but we'd rather not draw the attention of mortals. We got to our room, and unlocked the door. I set my backpack next to my bed and sat down on it.

"Hey, I'm going to e-mail Sarah, find out who her partner is."

"You know who it is."

"Yeah, well a little confirmation couldn't hurt." I snapped back at him.

Bart just shrugged and laid back onto his bed. Grabbed my computer, and sent an email to sarah.

 _Hey, Sarah._

 _What's up? Did you choose someone for your math project? Wish we could've done ours together, Bart is still refusing to work on it. You wanna hang out tomorrow? Bart and I are gonna work on it for a bit, and then we'll be free._

I waited for a reply. With any luck we'd be heading back to camp Half-Blood in the next few days. We don't know if we'll make it out alive, though.

"Bart, we need to get a plan."

Bart sighed.

"We can intercept him en route."

"Well, duh. But we don't even know where they're meeting."

Bart sat up and folded his hands.

"The way I see it, we have two options. We can try and get her to tell us where they're meeting and ambush him, or we can follow him home after school."

"Trying to get him at the meeting place is way too hit and miss. We don't know enough about where they're meeting, where he lives, what route he'll take."

"Where he lives?"

"Oh, I guess I never thought about the fact that monsters don't really live anywhere."

"That's not entirely true, sometimes monsters have nests."

"Well, if we're not guaranteed to find a nest, we don't have time to try. We need a surefire plan. Or at least a way to confront him. The school year is coming to a close and a monster this patient won't let her get away easily."

My laptop pinged, and we both stared at it for a minute. I reached over and clicked on the notification. I cursed under my breath. At least we have a window to work with.

"What does it say?"

"They're meeting tomorrow at 6."

"Well, crap."

"Yeah, that gives us a 4 hour window to track him down and kill him. It's better than if they met after school, but not by much."

We thought for a minute. I got up and walked back and forth. I was never good at strategizing. I'm no child of Athena.

"He has to know who we are by now." I said. Bart just shook his head.

"Not for sure, he might have smelled us, but in a crowded area he might not be able to pick us out. We haven't met him in person yet."

"Well let's change that."

"Are you nuts?!"

I stopped pacing, and turned to face Bart.

"No, that's it! We'll ask if we can work with them. I told her you've been refusing to work on it, I think she'll buy it."

"Hey!" He yelled, but I just smirked back at him.

"In all seriousness, we can meet her there. If we kill him before hand, great. If we don't, then we will be there to protect Sarah anyway. We can kill him on the way out."

"That might be very hard to pull off."

"You have a better idea?"

Bart just shrugged, so I wrote up another email. Emails are usually dangerous for demigods, but it's the least personal form of online communication. That makes it the safest for us.

 _The same Liam that you were talking about at lunch? Weird. Hey, do you mind if we join you tomorrow? Maybe you can get Bart to actually work on the project._

I clicked send. Then I went to my backpack and got the map of the town. We didn't have very many materials to work with. I have a sword, Bart has some pipes and a club. Even with the element of surprise, there is a distinct possibility we will be outmatched. I took out a sharpie, drawing a circle around a building on the map.

"That's the school, and we're over here. First question is, do we try to bring our weapons to school, or do we come back to get them. When we timed it, we could get back to the room in 15 minutes. That's 30 minutes round trip."

"Without knowing where he will go, this will be tough."

"Wait, she said he was pretty amazing at soccer, so maybe he's on a team. We might be able to get him at practice."

"Hey, moron. He's a MONSTER. He doesn't actually play for a team. It's probably some modern/european interpretation of his mythology. We'll just get him when he tries to make a move. That's the only time he'll be vulnerable."

"This is weird, monsters aren't usually this patient. It's like he's waiting for us to make a move."

"We'll just have to be prepared for it."

That night, I could barely get to sleep. Our survival and hers depended on a couple of hours. If we didn't use that time wisely, then she would die. I've done extractions before, but none of them ever came this close. Nevertheless, tomorrow, I was determined to do everything to kill that monster one way or another.


	2. Chapter 2

Liam

I was standing at the edge of a pit. It was nearly pitch black, but I could see the outline of the stone wall, and the massive hole in the ground. There were voices coming from inside the pit. Deep, evil voices. Something that sounded old. Not in age, but in power.

"Look at him. He's pitiful."

"He could never carry out our plans."

I've gotten used to these chats. I laid back against the wall as the voices continued to insult me. I laid my head back, and tried to make out more detail in the cave around me.

"DON'T TUNE US OUT BOY" A voice thundered out of the darkness, shaking the cavern. I heard dust fall from the roof and felt it on my skin. I truly despise the voices. As I sit there, I realize I've had enough. They're the ones down in the pit. They may think that they're the kings around here, but I need to earn some respect. I lean down and feel around for a rock. I find some pebbles, but eventually come across one that will serve my purposes.

I stand back up, and look down over the pit.

"You belong to us. You will complete your mission. Whether you help us or not, it will be you will bring them down."

I learned it was useless to ask them questions. They never give straight answers. As I stare into the darkness, I am scared of what will happen next. I muster up my courage, and try to keep fear from entering my voice.

"You think that I'm some birthright or something? I have my own freedom, and I intend to make the best of it. I will not be dominated by some bodiless voices at the bottom of a pit."

I hefted the rock up, and then hurled it down the pit. I waited for it to hit the ground. _one second, two seconds, three seconds …_ I never heard it hit anything. The cave was completely silent for a bit longer and I wondered if I managed to hit them. Then the cave was filled with booming laughter. Reverberated through my spine, and I backed myself against the wall.

"You don't know where this leads, do you? And a stone? You think a mere stone will hurt us? You have gusto, I'll give you that. Let me show you our power. That will teach you some respect. Something your father was never able to do."

Something slammed into my side, sending me flying along the wall. I felt blood trickle down my back. I felt something pulling me towards the pit. I dug my heels into the ground as I slid towards the pit. I screamed for help as I tumbled into the darkness.

I woke up in a cold sweat. I hate those dreams, they feel so real. I touched the back of my neck to make sure that there was no blood there. I looked over at my clock, it was 7:17. It takes 7 minutes getting ready, 13 minutes for breakfast, and 10 minutes for travel time including traffic. An extra 3 minute buffer for leeway. With all of that I get there 5 minutes early.

I decided to use the three minutes to calm myself down. The dream was more vivid than usual. Lesson learned: don't explicitly challenge their authority. I looked over at the clock. 7:19. I decided not to push it, and got ready. I got downstairs, and poured a bowl of cereal.

Not long into my breakfast, my sister came down stairs. Well, technically foster sister, but for all intents and purposes she was my sister.

"'Morning Abby." I said as I shoveled cereal into my mouth.

"Good morning Liam." She said as she grabbed a bagel. I gave a mock groan.

"How many times do I have to tell you? A bagel doesn't count as breakfast."

"I'm the older one. If I say it does, it does." She said, with a playful smile. "C'mon, we need to get to school."

Someone passed the ball to me and I looked up. I took a touch around the defender coming at me and ran down the side line. The defender charged back after me so I tapped the ball backwards with the inside of my right foot, then spun around as fast as I could using the outside of my left foot to knock it sideways. I ran along the edge of the box, taking a touch past the first center back and cutting inside of the other one. I slammed the ball inside the near post and barely beat the keeper.

My teammates cheered and I gave them high fives all around as we jogged back to our side. That made it 3-1, and we only had a couple of minutes left. Our team was really good, so we dominated this game.

They took the kickoff and I jockeyed backwards as I covered my guy. They passed the ball around a bit before they launched it downfield. Our center back beat their striker to the ball and headed it back forward. Once we got the ball we passed it around a bit, just killing time. After a minute, the ref blew the whistle as time ran out.

We packed up our stuff and headed back to the bus. I got some congratulations on my goal and we started talking about the game. Praising players for good plays, making fun of others for mistakes, the usual.

"Hey, Liam, wanna hang out when we get back?" A kid ased. I didn't even have to think about it. Not that I didn't like him, I was just going to be busy working on that project.

"Nah, sorry, I've got to work on a math project." I replied.

"C'mon, you're a smart guy. You could do it afterwards. Who is your partner?"

I thought for a second, trying to remember her name.

"Sarah Brown"

"Alright, lay off him guys." Our captain said, but his mischievous grin gave away his true intentions. "He doesn't have to come cause he's gonna get some."

I just laughed at that. "She doesn't seem to be the uh… morally loose type."

"Nonsense. You have game, man. Noone can resist the great Liam Walker."

"Yeah, you just got to put on the moves!"

"The only moves I'll be 'putting on' today will be soccer moves." I said. That elicited a couple of laughs, and the conversation moved on. Once we got back, I got changed and headed towards the library on foot. It was a nice day. The sun was out, there was a gentle breeze. It had it all. I heard one of my father's favorite sayings playing in my head, _Don't worry when it all goes wrong, worry when it all goes right._ I usually write it off as him being trying to be deep, but the thought still unsettled me.

I entered the library and took a good look around. There was a large room filled with children's books to the left, the librarians were checking out a middle aged man to my right, and at the far end was . There was an emergency door on that back wall, and an entrance by that side to the right just past the librarians. I walked towards the far end and through the bookcases.

There were 4 tables, made completely out of laminated wood, pushed up against the wall. Sarah was sitting at one in the middle. I set my bag down and sat down opposite of her. There was two other people at the table. A brown haired boy, and a ginger boy with the beginnings to a goatee or beard. They gave me a stern look, and I shot them a hard one back.

"Hey, Sarah. What's up?" I asked. She seemed much more friendly than her accomplices.

"Nothing much."

I turned to what must've been her friends. I held out my hand. The gesture clearly caught them off guard as they left me hanging for a second.

"Hi, I don't believe we've met. I'm Liam." I said.

"John." The brown haired kid said as he finally shook my hand.

"Bart" The other kid said. He didn't shake my hand.

Something was off about them, but I wrote it off as them just being rude. I grabbed my laptop out of my bag and set it down on the table. I powered it up and logged in. I kept an eye on John and Bart, because they were giving me weird vibes. They kept shooting me glances out the side of their eyes, trying to be inconspicuous.

We worked in the most tense silence I've ever experienced. Sarah didn't really seem to notice it, and happily hummed along as she typed up. I scrolled through the formatting options for the slides, looking for anything to distract me from their unnerving stares..

Sarah scooched back in her chair.

"I'm gonna go to the bathroom. Be right back."

 _This is almost as bad as my nightmares_ , I thought to myself. I could see the tension in her friends too. Sarah couldn't come back fast enough. I began to plan out things, just in case. Worst comes to worse, I hit John first because he is sitting next to me. By the time Bart came around the table, it would just be me and him. Those were favourable odds.

"We know what you are." John said, as he slowly turned to look at me. I kept my emotions hidden. The less they knew, the better.

"Is that so?"

John slowly unzipped his backpack, and I stared right at it. If I wasn't so stressed out, I could swear there was a hilt sticking out the top. But there was no way it was a knife, the hilt would've been buried.

"We've been waiting, but we can't let you hurt her." He said in a scary tone. Time seemed to stop as we waited for someone to make the first move.

His hand shot into the bag and I slammed my fist into his jaw.

Barts slammed his bag into my head and I stumbled backwards, tripping over my chair.

I got to my hands and knees, turning away from them as I scrambled to get away. Then, a sharp pain erupted in my shoulder, and I was shoved to the ground. By the time I realized what was going on, my shirt was soaked in blood. I glanced back and saw John attempting to dislodge a bronze sword from my shoulder. I was getting weaker by the second, but I could just make out John screaming.

"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON…."

Blood roared in my ears, and drowned out the yelling as the darkness came. It swallowed everything and I blacked out.

Wind whipped by my ears, pulling on my face. I was weak, couldn't feel my arm or legs. I tried to move them, but I couldn't. I felt disembodied. As I gained some feeling back, I realized I was gripping something firm, but soft. It was a texture I couldn't place. It didn't help I was still closing my eyes. I tried to open my eyes, but I couldn't concentrate enough to do it.

Eventually, I found the strength to crack them open, which helped me confirm some part of me was still concrete. A dark shape flew past me, which startled me. Not that I had enough energy to react to it. As my vision cleared up, I got a better look at what the shape was. It was a wing. A large one at that. It was easily ten feet long, covered in black feathers, and was flapping quite feverishly. Whatever was moving it was using a lot of effort to do so.

"Hey, stay in there." A voice said. It sounded concerned, and kind of familiar.

"You got to stay awake. We're almost there."

I was really tired and my eyes felt like lead. The pain in my shoulder had returned. It would be so much easier to just go to sleep. The pain would go away, and I wouldn't have to fight to keep my eyes open. Not that they were doing any good; I was clearly hallucinating. Yeah, that sounds good. I'll just go back to sleep. I'll be fine. That last thing that I heard before I blacked out again was the stranger's voice again.

"Aw, come on man..."

When I came back to, I was laying in a bed. The room was painted a dull sky blue, with a large dresser and a ceiling fan. There was a nightstand next to the bed with a lamp, a soda cup, and a book on it. As I looked more closely, it became apparent this wasn't a guest room. Someone lived here. Some of the drawers were slightly open, the trash can wasn't empty.

Now, who lived here was a different question entirely. I felt better, although I still struggled to sit up. I tried to remember what happened. I was working on the project, those weird kids showed up. I think one of them stabbed me with a sword. Maybe they drugged me. That would make a lot more sense than someone stabbing me with a sword then flying me to god-knows-where on some giant winged thing.

As if in direct contradiction with that theory, my shoulder started to hurt again. It is better than it was on the winged thing. I pulled the collar of my shirt down to look at it. There was a scar that started next to my shoulder blade and arced over my left shoulder. It was a nasty, agitated red color.

If I was stabbed, there was no guarantee that I was somewhere safe. I needed a weapon. A fist fight would take energy and freedom of movement I didn't have. The lamp was too heavy, but worse comes to worse I smash it. I could use the broken glass. Other than that, I was fresh out of ideas. I didn't have the strength to wield anything heavy, so I needed something sharp. There were obviously no knives lying around, but there weren't even scissors or toenail clippers.

I slowly rolled myself over, and smashed the lamp against the wall. It hit it and shattered with a loud crashing sound. Side note: don't make decisions when dealing with massive blood loss. I sifted through the pieces of glass, but they were all too small. I was just going to cut myself if I used one. Great. Good going Liam. All that noise for nothing.

I pull the lamp towards myself. I unscrew the lightbulb, hiding it under the covers about a foot away from me. Don't want to accidentally stab myself. I heard a series of soft thuds, and it took me a minute to realize they were footsteps. I fell back into the pillows, and tried to relax my breathing.

The hinges creaked and I could almost sense a presence in the doorway. There was more footsteps as they approached the bed. _Dang,_ I thought, _the lamp._ I slowly moved my hand over to the bulb, ready for anything. There was more footsteps and I felt my whole body tense up as I waited for some sign that they were approaching. On the contrary, the door closed with a loud smack.

I sat back up and almost lost consciousness from doing it too suddenly. Once the room stopped spinning, I tried to make sense of all this. That didn't help too much with the headache. Then, it hit me like a truck. My family. They must be so worried. I just dropped off the face of the earth for who knows how long. I just wished I had never partnered with Sarah. Then my life would still be normal. I'd still be going to soccer practice.

I didn't even hear them coming until the door opened. A beautiful native American woman, maybe late twenties, entered. She had perfect brown hair and eyes that changed color as she moved. She stepped aside and a middle aged man in a wheelchair rolled in. He wore a tweed jacket, had graying hair, and a face that was just beginning to really age.

"Glad to see your awake. I'm Chiron, and this is Piper McLean" He said. He looked directly at where my left hand clutched the shattered bulb under the covers. "Oh trust me, you won't need that. We're not here to hurt you."

I didn't let go of the bulb.

"Where am I?" I asked. The girl was wearing an orange T-Shirt that said Camp Half-Blood. I wonder if it was some summer camp she went to or something.

"Camp Half-Blood." He said very matter-of-factly. I guess that explains the shirt.

I raised an eyebrow. That was a weird name for a camp. It's weirder than a 50 year old cripple named after a centaur.

"Why am I here?" He gave a soft chuckle.

"That, is the million dollar question." He gave a deep sigh. "I'm afraid there was a mixup. Someone thought you were something you weren't, and as I'm sure you're aware of you were attacked."

 _Of course I was aware of that,_ I thought, _it still hurts a lot._ The girl, who has yet to say a word, is just staring at me. I stare back at her, and the old man continued on.

"What is your name?"

"Liam." I said firmly, making it clear that was all he was going to get from me. He nodded as if in acknowledgement of that.

"Liam, how familiar are you with greek mythology?"

"I've heard my fair share." I said. I wasn't sure where he was going with looked like a teacher, so I wonder if it was some metaphor or something.

"This place," He gestured all around him, "is a haven for demigods."

"Demigods."

"Yep." He said. I just laughed at that and I could swear I saw him flinch for a second. But seriously, demigods? This must be some roleplaying camp or something. Those are myts.

"Listen, we'll show you the orientation video later, but we have a more pressing matter." I didn't like the sound of that. I gripped the bulb tight, as a reminder to both of us that it was there. He gave Piper a look, and she stared straight into my eyes.

"Hi, I'm Piper. I'm gonna ask you a few questions, but if you feel uncomfortable answering any of them just let me know. I don't think we'll have that problem though."

That seemed reasonable. I mean, how could such a pretty, nice girl ask me something I was uncomfortable with.

"Who are your parents?"

"Jack and Sue."

"What is your last name?" That sent off all sorts of red flags. But for some reason I really wanted to tell her. It would be harmless, right? I mean what can someone do with a last name that they couldn't do with a first? _No,_ I told myself. It's a matter of maintaining control.

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. What did you say it was?"

"I didn't." My voice quivered. I _really_ wanted to tell her, but I knew I couldn't. They didn't know who I was and that was my advantage. Something was off here. I didn't like Piper, she was starting to creep me out. When will I meet someone normal?!

"Oh, my bad. What was your father's full name?"

"Jack Smith."

"And your mother's?"

"Sue Smith." I registered that somehow I shouldn't have said that, but what harm could my parent's names do, really? She probably just wanted to contact them or something.

"Thanks. Are both of your parents around?"

"Yeah, they're both fine. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, no reason." Somehow that made sense. "Do you have a stepfather or stepmother?"

"Well, sort of. I'm adopted."

A flash of realization crossed both of their faces.

"Thanks for your cooperation. Now get some rest."

I fell asleep, bulb in hand.

Piper

"That was weird." I told Chiron. We descended down the stairs. "It took some effort to work my charmspeak on him."

He just nodded. It frustrated me sometimes just how secretive he was. He clearly knew something was going on. The kid was no normal demigod, and he really creeped me out. I have had enough adventures to tell when something wasn't human, but I couldn't tell. He looked very human, even though I sensed some mist around him.

His voice was unsettling. It sounded like a sword being drawn from its sheath. Also, His eyes were clouded, so I couldn't quite tell what color they were. Everything little detail about him just gave off a non-human vibe, but all together he looked very human. I turned to face Chiron.

"Who is he?"

"To be honest, I don't know. I have some theories, but none of them make any sense whatsoever. We'll take him in like any other demigod. Tomorrow, put him through training. Let's see if we can't figure out who his parentage is."

I just nodded in agreement, then left the Big House. Camp Half got a lot of expansions due to Jason. There were cabins for each god now, expanded dining hall, the whole deal. That didn't exactly land him on the gods' list of favorite demigods, but some of them acknowledged him for what he was doing.

I am confused, and don't know what to make of the situation. I needed wisdom. Thankfully, I had a personal well of wisdom. Annabeth. She always knew what to do. Even though she had moved to New Rome, we still kept in touch. She actually had a kid about a year and a half ago.

I wasn't supposed to talk about Liam to anyone, though. So I had to find a secluded spot. With a prism in my backpack, all I needed was space. After 5-10 minutes of just walking deep into the woods, I felt sure that I was alone. I set the prism on the ground, and took a drachma out. It disappeared into the rainbow and I spoke out loud.

"Annabeth Chase, New Rome."

An image of Annabeth appeared on the ground, with her infant cradled in her lap. She was playing with little Charles (named after Charles Beckendorf), and he was giggling hysterically.

"Hey, Annabeth, Piper's messaging you." Percy's voice said from the background.

Annabeth turned around with wide eyes, and a huge smile grew on her face.

"Nice to hear from you again, Piper. Now tell me what's wrong, I can see it all over your face." Annabeth said. Her smile quickly turned into a serious look.

I gave her a smile. It's always nice to talk to her, because she's very upfront.

"A couple of days ago, a demigod and a satyr went on an extraction mission. The satyr said a very powerful monster was watching her. Long story short, they managed to confront the monster and the demigod hit it with a sword."

"Okay." Annabeth said cautiously. I could see the gears in her head turning, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

"It wasn't a monster. The so called 'monster' got a celestial bronze blade stuck in his shoulder, and was understandably very confused."

"How does that happen?"

"I don't know." I said, shrugging my shoulders. "Even Chiron admitted that he smelled like a monster. That's not all of it, either. A wound like that should have taken all week to recover. This kid is on track to be fully recovered tomorrow."

"Maybe he is the son of some minor god. But a very violent one. One that might be confused with an evil entity." She said. She had a good point, but I still wasn't convinced.

"We would've had an accident like this by now if that were the case, right? And the fact he's healing so fast is weird."

Annabeth thought about that for a minute.

"Not necessarily, it's possible that such an individual being spotted in close proximity to an already identified demigod would provide some contrast to the smells, and would be very rare. But at this point it's all conjecture. As for the wound, not even Jason healed from a wound that fast."

"Annabeth, I think Chiron might know what's going on. He refuses to say, but he clearly knew more than what's going on." She just sighed at that.

"Chiron usually knows what's best. If he isn't saying, it's because it's not information that would do anyone that good." Annabeth was staring at the mist in fascination. He waved his cute little arms back and forth as he tried to reach for the mist, but she held him back.

"What god could possibly produce such an offspring?"

"There are many gods that are considered evil, and are very powerful. There's Eos for one. That would cause a lot of problems in more ways than one could count. We'll just have to wait and see."

"Thanks, Annabeth, I appreciate it. Bye, Charles"

"Bye!" His little voice sang.

 **A/N: The story is starting to take shape. If you like the story, or noticed something I should change please leave a review. Any feedback is good feedback!**


	3. Chapter 3

Sarah

I exited the Big House with Liam and saw Chiron standing outside the. We had just watched the orientation video, and my head is still reeling. Liam seemed to be handling the news better. However, I didn't know him as well and he's been here a few days. I'll try to get that out of him.

He brought us down the hill, and through the rows of cabins. There were a least a couple dozen. All laid out in concentric U's, they were the bizarrest collection of buildings I'd ever seen. The outer ones were a little more normal, but they still had weird plants and weapons decorating the cabins.

"You two will be in Cabin 8 until a god claims you as a child."

Out of all the cabins, this seemed the most normal. It resembled a motel room, but it was two stories. Chiron opened the door, and revealed the interior of the cabin. It looked like an army barracks. There were bunk beds stuffed against the walls that were pushed end to end. The first three rows were full of kids in their pajamas, and the last row was empty.

"Hey, Chiron. New demigods?" A boy said. He was easily 17. He was tall, handsome with brown hair and a crooked grin. The smiles were friendly all around, but each and every kid had this mischievous glint in their eyes.

"This is Sarah, and this is Liam." Chiron said, as he gestured to each of us. He slowly backed up. "That's Vince, he'll be your counselor for the next day or two."

"Thanks. See you at breakfast!" Vince said. As Chiron left, he looked straight at us. "How are you guys doing? Nervous?"

"A little." Liam said. That was an understatement. I am still fairly sure I'm just in a very elaborate, very detailed dream. I mean, come on, monsters and gods? That's just plain crazy.

"Don't worry that's completely normal." Vince said. "We're heading to breakfast in a couple of minutes. Then we'll got to our activities. We got sword fighting, pegasus lessons, you name it."

"Sword fighting? Isn't that kind of dangerous?" I asked. Vince just shrugged.

"Most of the time, no. But the apollo cabin works wonders with medicine. Don't worry."

"Thanks, that's reassuring." I didn't really like the idea of leaving my fate in the hands of high schoolers with genetic doctor skills. But it didn't sound like I had much of a choice. Vince walked us to the back of the cabin, and showed us our bunks. I set down my backpack on my the bottom one, and Liam kind of stood there awkwardly.

People started leaving the cabin, so Liam and I followed them out. Vince waited behind for us, then walked with us to the dining hall. It was a large, open amphitheater with a large bronze brazier in the middle. Oh, my bad, celestial bronze brazier. Forgot I was still in mythology land.

"So where are you guys from?" Vince asked.

"Birmingham." I replied. Vince gave a general nod to that.

"Did you get any interesting stories on your journey?"

"Uh, not really. They kind of just rushed me home one day and had me pack up." I noticed Liam was becoming very uncomfortable. There was a lot of blood on the floor when I came back, Bart looked sick, and Liam was gone as was John. They must have been attacked by something, but Liam clearly didn't want to talk about it.

"Well count yourself lucky. Trust me I've been on extractions that went south and they're not fun." Vince said. I believed him.

I sat next to Liam at breakfast while Vince sat further down the table. A punch of weird people with pointed ears and pale green skin came from the trees with platters of food. I mean they had everything. Pancakes, Waffles, French Toast - you name it. As they set them down, people filled their plates, and then walked up to the brazier.

I leaned over to Liam.

"If we aren't claimed yet, then who do we give the offerings to?" Liam gave me a thoughtful look.

"I guess we can pray to our parent. We may not know who they are, but as an all powerful being they should know who we are. If they really exist." He said. It felt really nice to have someone else going through this at the same time. These people didn't seem like fanatics. It would've been so much easier if they were all crazy, but I'm starting to believe the things they say.

Liam gets up and I followed him to the brazier. He dumped some of his food into the fire and looked up at the the sky. As he did so, he must've inhaled some smoke because he began to cough and walked back to our table. I stepped up to the brazier and scraped some of my food into the flames.

 _If you're out there, or even exist. Please help me find who I am. I'm lost, and I don't know where to go._ The smoke smelled amazing, like apple pies, steaks, and pretty much every good smelling food possible. I didn't stay too long though, didn't want to choke on it like Liam did. As I walked back to the table I looked around. Each table was clearly a family. They all had the same hair color, facial features, and mannerisms. One table had a bunch of kids fighting and arguing all the time, while another had a bunch of hippie looking kids having pleasant conversations.

I sat down next to Liam. He looked very out of place - obviously not used to being the odd one out. We sat in awkward silence for a moment. I mean, what could we say: _Oh, hey. Monsters and Gods and stuff. Weird, huh?_ Finally, I decided to break the silence.

"So, how did you get here?" I asked.

"I'd rather not talk about it." He said sternly. I guess I should've seen that one coming. He was fairly uncomfortable earlier about this subject.

We followed the cabin into the arena. It was like a miniature coliseum, with the stands and everything. Blonde sand covered the floor of the arena, and an equally blonde man stood in the middle. He was tall, with shockingly blue eyes. He wore a skin tight Under Armour t-shirt and some jeans. In his hand, he held a bronze greek sword.

Everyone went over to a weapon rack lining the wall and grabbed a wooden training sword. They all felt pretty heavy, but some of them felt more awkward than others. Liam went through a few then joined the crowd forming around the blonde guy. I picked one up that wasn't that bad and ran over to join the group.

"Everyone pair up, and start doing your drills. As for our new kids, I'll meet up with you guys." He said. The kids spread out all over the arena, and left just us two with the guy. "The name's Jason Grace. I'm assuming you're Liam and Sarah?"

We both nodded and he gave us a friendly smile.

"Well let's see what you're made of." He said. "Don't go too hard, but see what you can do naturally."

We stared at each other, and I wasn't sure when we were to start fighting.

Liam lunged forward, thumping his blade against my arm. I blocked an overhead strike, and backed up to dodge a swipe at my torso.

Liam attacked furiously, landing hits on my arms, legs and torso.

He missed a slash and I thrust my blade towards him. I caught him between the ribs, and he grunted in pain.

He smacked my blade out of my hand with the flat of his blade.

"Very nice Liam, few people can keep up a pace like that on their first time." He said, then turned to me. "Not bad yourself, Sarah. You kept up well."

He kept us in the center and turned me so I was facing Liam. Then he started teaching us. He showed us the fighting stance. With our weak foot forward, holding the hilt by our waist, and pointing the tip towards the opponent. Then he showed us some basic strikes and blocks. Liam and I were pretty even during the drills. That made me feel a lot better.

"Alright, our time's almost up. Let's see how you do." Jason said. Finally, I get my chance to re-match Liam. I was really anxious to see how it'd go after the hour of training. "You two will go against me, one at a time. Sarah, we'll let you go first."

Wait, what did he say? Jason was very muscular, and easily in his late twenties. Hopefully, he will go easy on me. I got in the stance, making sure my foot was in the right place and all that. I decided to follow Liam's example and struck at Jason first.

Jason parried it effortlessly, and I followed it up with some more. He swatted those away with the flat of his blade. He stepped forward as his blade flew at shoulder level with unnatural speed.

I barely brought my blade up to stop it. As he pressed me, his sword was a blur. It seemed to be everywhere. It felt like fighting off a river with a tennis racket. Eventually, he twisted his blade against my hilt, flinging it into the sand.

"Not bad, Sarah." Jason said with a smile. "You have some potential."

I got a warm feeling in my chest when I heard that. No one has really told me I had potential at something. I've always just been average.

"Alright, come here Liam." Jason readied himself.

Liam stepped up to face Jason, and his face hardened. He thrust at Jason, but Jason was expecting it and parried it. Jason started pressing Liam, and Liam flicked his blade clumsily to parry each strike. Jason stepped up the tempo, and Liam started dancing around. Liam would block two strikes then dodge the third. However, he wasn't too successful at dodging Jason's blows.

Jason began landing hits on Liam, each with a muffled thud. Then he eventually went to disarm Liam. He braced his blade against Liam's hilt, and then Liam smacked Jason's hilt with his free hand. Jason went to follow up as Liam stepped inside his swing. He smashed his hilt against Jason's shoulder, forcing Jason to retreat.

Jason quickly recovered, again putting Liam on his back foot. It only took a few more moves before Jason disarmed Liam. Liam was breathing really heavily and Jason had a few beads of sweat on his forehead.

"You have good spirit, Liam." Jason said. "I like that."

The rest of the day, we did the weirdest camp activities. We went to archery, where none of us really excelled. I beat Liam, though, so it wasn't a complete waste of time. We were taught how to run by dryads, where we were left in the dust. There was a kid who was at least 11 or 12 who beat me everytime. Stupid Hermes' kids.

Liam and I were pretty close in almost everything we did. I beat him at archery and was a better artist, but he was way faster than I was and excelled at combat. He was one aggressive dude. He gave his all at everything, which is why he was better at things like running.

We went to dinner and again, I sat next to Liam. I had met some of the kids in the cabin. They were alright I guess. It was a strangely normal group of kids. If this place is really what it claims it is, these kids are descendants of gods.

I heard that tonight we are going to be claimed. I was really nervous though. What if someone doesn't claim me? Even though I am still not sure whether or not I believe them about all this god stuff, I knew this was a big deal. The cabins were really close, they were more like extended family than a group of kids who met at camp. In hindsight, that's a dumb observation.

Liam and I shared stories with a couple of other kids in the cabin while we ate. Crazy or not, I liked these kids. Also, even though the activities are a bit weird, I could get used to them. The sword fighting and hand to hand combat were cool, as well as the mystical aura around the camp. Although, the more I see satyrs, pegasi, and dryads, I become more convinced they're telling the truth.

"Hey, so what happens if we don't get claimed?" I asked. The kids we were talking to kind of laughed.

"Don't worry about that. No one doesn't get claimed. They have to." One of them said.

"Why do they have to? I mean, aren't they gods? They can kinda do whatever they want." Liam asked. I wondered what cabin Liam would go to. I would guess Ares. The dude was a fighting machine, and hasn't really shown any other special skills. Although, he wasn't your stereotypical meat head soldier.

"Crap, I can't remember." The other kid said. He looked at the first kid for an answer.

"It's a great story. So, like twenty years ago, there was this prophecy that a child of the Big Three would turn 16 and someone would make a choice to save or end the world. Well, a guy named Percy Jackson, a son of Poseidon, came along. It turns out Kronos was rising at the time, and a war broke out. After Kronos was defeated, Percy Jackson was offered any gift - even immortality. Instead, he asked the gods to watch over their children more. Part of that deal was that no child would go unclaimed, which used to be a huge problem. Ever since then, no one hasn't been claimed. You have nothing to worry about, they literally can't not claim you."

"Well that's good to hear." I said. Even then, I was still a bit nervous. I mean, I finally get to meet my mother. Well, at least know who she is. When she's a goddess that's really the best I can ask for.

Chiron tapped his spoon against his glass to grab everyone's attention.

"Alright, before we begin, we have some new demigods who have arrived." Chiron said. The campers gave a small round of applause. "Sarah, can you bring your plate up here please."

I felt all eyes turn to me, and I sat there for a minute before I realized I had to walk up to the head table. I slowly got up, trying not to fall over. I stood in front of the head table. Chiron walked around and turned me around so that I faced the brazier in the center of the room. There was anticipation written all over everyone's face.

He motioned me forward, and I scraped some of my food into the fire.

"Di Immortales, we give this offering to the parent of this demigod. We humbly ask that the rightful parent claim this demigod as their own."

The crowd of demigods clapped, but one table in particular was clapping very enthusiastically. The kids weren't actually looking at me, but something behind me. I turned to Chiron, but he wasn't doing anything. He nodded upwards, and I looked above me. There was a holographic image flickering above my head. It was a pale gold wheat stalk. Chiron addressed the sky again.

"Thank you, Demeter, for claiming this child as your own." He turned to me, and spoke with a normal volume level. He pointed over to the table that had been cheering. "You can go sit over there."

I walked down and got some pats on the back from my new cabin mates. They were all had brown hair, brown eyes. Chiron motioned us to quiet down, and the room became silent.

"Liam, can you bring your plate up here please." Chiron said. Liam didn't look nervous at all, but I knew the feeling. He was just better at hiding it than I was. I could swear that kid was made of stone sometimes. Liam turned towards us, and scraped some of his food into the fire.

"Di Immortales, we give this offering to the parent of this demigod. We humbly ask that the rightful parent claim this demigod as their own."

We sat in anticipated silence as we waited for an image to appear over his head. Liam stood perfectly still, as if he might scare off the gods if he moved too much. The silence grew tense as time went on, and people started to whisper. I leaned over and spoke as softly as I could.

"What's going on?" I asked. They shrugged their shoulders.

"I don't know, never seen this happen before." They said. There was a hint of worry in their voice.

Everyone sat there for a few moments as the whispers died out and were replaced by a suffocating absence of noise. The only thing that moved in the whole room was Chiron, as he shifted nervously. Finally, he broke the silence.

"We appreciate your consideration, and hope that his parent shall claim him soon." Chiron said rather pointedly as he steered Liam around the back of the head table and out of sight. Immediately, the room erupted into furious conversation. I couldn't actually hear any of the conversations going on, but I didn't need to. I listened to what the people at my table were saying.

"What happened up there?"

"No one claimed him."

"How is that even possible?"

I felt bad for Liam. I don't know much about how he got here, but obviously it wasn't pleasant. Now, he's the first camper since the pact to be claimed. That's a rough one-two.

"There wasn't really a timeline in the deal, was there?"

"I guess not, but it violates the idea of not forgetting the demigods. Especially because they've already claimed everyone on the first day!"

As I went to bed that night, I wondered how my father was doing. He apparently had some idea that I was a demigod, so he probably was somewhat prepared for this. Still, it must be hard on him.

Liam

Chiron ushered me deep into the woods. I could barely see anything, but he kept his hand firmly on my shoulder as I stumbled through the forest. Eventually, he tightened his grip on my shoulder and I stopped. I felt around for a tree, leaning against the nearest one I could find.

"Why are we out here?" I asked. "Surely hiding from gods won't be as easy as running into a dark forest."

"No, but we must have as few ears as possible listening." Chiron said. His tone was very serious. "Do you know how long I have taught demigods?"

"A long time?" I asked. Chiron was the guy who trained all the heroes in the stories. I think I knew what was coming. What could I have done to be abandoned like this? Especially if they're one of my parents.

"Millenia. Do you know how many demigods haven't been claimed since the pact?" Chiron said.

"None?"

"Correct. But more importantly, in the millenia that I have taught demigods, not a single one has been mistaken for a monster." Chiron said. I could see his silhouette shift in the darkness. "I don't know who your parent is, Liam. But I do know this, you are very unique."

"Is that good or bad?" I ask cautiously. "Unique is an ambiguous word."

"Exactly why I used it." Chiron replied. "But I do know that there is a good chance that no one will claim you. That will bring a lot of trouble."

"Why did no one claim me?" I asked. Chiron just sighed.

"I have no clue. How the gods act the way they do is beyond my understanding. However, I do know that whoever your parent is, they are in a sticky situation. If they come forward they will be in huge trouble with the other gods. However, they will be in bigger trouble if the gods figure out who it is before they come forward." Chiron said. He sounded very confident in that fact.

"Wouldn't it have been easier just to claim me?"

"In theory , yes. But like I said before, gods can be unpredictable. No matter what happens though, things are going to get crazy." Chiron said. "Before all hell breaks loose, I wanted to tell you one thing."

"Yes?"

"Despite what people say about you, only you can decide your future. No matter your past, your actions, your parentage. You shape your future with every second of every day."

"Chiron, why are you telling me this?" Chiron put his hand on my shoulder, but in a more reassuring way than before.

"You're going to face people in your life who will try to pressure you into making decisions or forming loyalties. It's all part of being a demigod. It's important that you make your own choices."

"I know."

He led me out of the woods, and when I returned to the Hermes cabin my head was spinning. I don't know what to say about anything. Should have asked Chiron when I had the chance.

I woke up as someone shook me. My eyes snapped open and Vince filled my vision.

"C'mon wake up. Rule number one in here is you wake up on time or you'll wish you did." He said. He gave a mischievous grin, and I figured it was better that he didn't elaborate.

I got ready as fast as I could and followed the cabin to breakfast. I got to know the cabin a bit better. I figured I'd probably be staying with them for a while, so I should get some friends. We kept it to small talk. Thank goodness they didn't press the whole matter of being disowned by the god side of the family. Finally, we left breakfast and made our way towards the arena for sword practice.

I really liked combat, it was pure competition. A battle of physical prowess and mental will. I grabbed a wooden sword off the rack, and gathered around Jason. He told us to pair up, and practice the basic strokes just like last time. I paired up with one of the older kids, and began practicing with him. His form was much better than mine, but my reaction time was better. We were pretty even.

For the next hour, we had nothing. I wasn't really sure what to do with that time. I went down to the camp store to see if they had a soccer ball or at least something to do. It was a short building, resembling a souvenir shop. It was full of greek mythology themed T-shirts, mugs, and other weirdly touristy stuff. However, the other half of the shop was fake minotaur horns, maps, and magic items. It had so much stuff that it didn't even have room for a clock.

I browsed through the store, checking out items that seemed interesting. There was a satyr behind the counter. The horns and all that still kind of creeped me out. Even with him lazily kicked back, feet on the counter, eyes half closed.

As I drifted past the counter, the cashier watched me with open interest. He sniffed a couple of times, and I could hear Chiron's voice in my head. _No one has been mistaken for a monster before._ I noticed a couple of pamphlets.

There were ones for minor tasks set out by the gods, Hephaestus TV channel guides, and a activity catalogue for the camp. I picked up the camp catalogue, looking for something to do. There was some really boring activities such as bust making, basket weaving etcetera. Others were obscenely dangerous. There was an asterisk next to those, indicating you need authorization to participate.

A particular activity caught my eye. _Hand to Hand Combat_. That sounded interesting. And if there really is a world chock full of monsters out there, some self defense skills would come in handy. I put it pack in it's place. It started in 13 minutes, and it would probably take me 11 just to find my way there.

I walked into the arena once again, where Clarisse was waiting. There were maybe ten or fifteen kids, from a variety of cabins. Some came in pairs, others alone like me. Clarisse checked her watch. After a few minutes, she gave a loud cough.

"Listen up punks, this is hand to hand combat. Here, you'll learn how to defend yourself using the ancient art of pankration as well as basic boxing tactics. If this isn't where you want to be, leave." She waited a moment before continuing.. "It will be grueling work. Hand to hand combat is the grittiest, worst kind of fighting. This isn't a movie or a book; in real life fights aren't long, drawn out duels. They're chaotic, adrenaline fueled brawls that are over in 30 seconds or less."

She looked around before she continued.

"What you'll learn is how to make these fights less chaotic one lesson at a time. Now, today we'll practice an over the shoulder throw."

Clarisse pointed to a kid in the crowd and signaled him to come up. He was maybe 16 years old, with sandy brown hair and a crooked nose.

"Throw a slow motion punch at me."

The kid very slowly swung his right arm towards her. Clarisse stepped into the punch, latching both of her hands onto his arm.

"Notice, I caught his arm with both hands, my left on his wrist and my right on his bicep. This is important to get the leverage to throw your opponent. Now I drive my right shoulder into his shoulder, pull his arm over my shoulder, and lean over. "

She pulled on his arm and turned her body so that her shoulder collided with his. In one fluid motion, she had him on the floor. She didn't slam him hard, but didn't let him down softly. He still hit the ground with decent force.

"Find someone close to your size, and practice this. If you can't pull them over your shoulder, then go through the motions." Clarisse said. Then she raised a finger. "However, if you want to stay in this class you better gain some strength. I'll deal with it because it's the first few weeks, but my patience will wear thin quickly. Now group up!"

After some awkward mingling, I came across a younger kid who seemed in decent shape. He shrugged his shoulders, and we stood next to each other in awkward silence for a minute. He was probably an inch or two shorter than me, but he was well toned. He had black hair and a serene look to him.

"You can go first." He said. I nodded back to him.

"Alright, when you're ready, throw the punch." I said.

He launched a slow motion haymaker which I barely managed to catch. I tugged his arm over my shoulder, leaning forward as I did so. Instead of flipping him, I pulled him onto my back. Since I was already leaning over, I collapsed with him on top of me. As I lay there, sprawled in the sand with him on my back, Clarisse knelt down in front of me.

"That was pathetic. Stand up." Clarisse snapped. She didn't sound mad as much as disgusted. I rolled out from under him, rushing to my feet. "Go back to your positions. And start again."

My partner stood across from me, and then threw another mock punch.

"Freeze."

She took my left hand, and twisted it so that my palm faced outward. She placed it over his wrist.

"Now step forward, and keep that arm still while you reach grab his upper arm with your other hand."

I took a step with my left foot, and Clarisse nearly tripped me as she pulled it back. I took the step with my right instead, grasping his bicep with my right hand.

"Now, twist your hands as you rotate."

I twisted my hands, which kept me in a more natural position. I wedged my shoulder into his, then slowly flipped him over my shoulder. He hit the ground with a satisfying thud.

"There you go." Clarisse said. "Next time, lean over to get better leverage but well done."

Clarisse walked away as I helped him back up. He wiped the dust off of his orange camp shirt, and turned to face me. I threw the punch this time. He caught it, then spun around. I felt an unbelievable amount of force on my arm as my literally turned upside down. I got the breath knocked out of me when my back slammed into the sand. This was going to be a brutal hour.

Dinner was a lot nicer when I wasn't being rejected by my godly parent in front of the whole camp. We were strapping up for capture the flag. It actually sounded like a lot of fun, if a little bit dangerous. I stood in front of several tables filled with armor, trying to see what fit. I got a cuirass, shield, spear, and a helmet with a red hair plume. I grabbed a sword, and strapped it to my hip. It was extra weight, but it might just save me.

Vince came over and helped me put my armor on. Once he was finished, he gave me a pat on the back and a wild grin.

"Excited?" He asked.

"Yeah." I responded. "Not sure what to expect, but excited."

He gave a laugh at that.

"Don't worry about it. You've been picking up on everything very quickly. I'll have you stick with me, Michael, and Anne. We're gonna go after the flag." He said. He then explained to me the strategy of who was going where. It was fairly complicated.

"Who came up with this strategy?" I asked.

"Athena cabin. We're allies with Athena, Hephaestus, Apollo, and a bunch of the minor gods' cabins." Vince said. We walked into the forest with our cabin as our allies joined around us. We were just under a fifty strong.

We took our positions in the woods. The creek that formed the boundary was about ten feet from our position. However, we were able to hide amongst the trees. We heard a conch horn and then dozens of battle cries erupted from the forest.

Some of them were very close. As it turns out, as we crossed the creek we were met by several enemies. We charged at each other, yelling and lowering our weapons. My vision tunneled as it was filled by the enemy running straight at me. I moved my legs as fast as they could go, and leaned forward.

There was a giant crash as they smashed into each other. I rammed my shield into the other guy's shield, and he leveled me. I fell in the creek, as I let out an _umph_.

Rolling over to the side, his blade splashed the water next to where my head was. I thrust my spear but he swatted it aside. Quickly moving my shield to cover myself, his blade clanged against shield. We traded blows, but never got past each other's shield.

Something large and bronze smashed into my side, knocking me off of my feet. The armor suddenly felt even heavier than it did before. My shield was still vibrating from the impact.

As I struggled to get to my feet, I saw the duo charging towards me. Luckily, Vince came flying out of nowhere and began fighting them off. Another ally joined him as they fought in a blur of shields, swords, and spears. I got to my feet, and saw two guys with blue hair plumes running past the creek about fifty down. I ran towards the duo as tree branches scratched at my armor. I imagined the pair running through the woods, heading in an arc towards our flag. I planned on intercepting them as they came back towards the flag.

My breath began to become ragged, and my T-Shirt was soaked with sweat. I heard rustling ahead, so I doubled my effort. I barrelled past a tree, and crashed into someone. I laid them out, and stumbled past them. I turned around just in time to block a sword thrust with my shield.

I lashed out clumsily with my spear, but he sidestepped it.

He caught my second thrust between his arm and his armor. He brought his shield down on it, snapping it. Then he charged me, sword leveled at my chest..

Instead of reaching for my sword, I stepped forward and swung what was left of my spear in an overhead strike. The wood cracked as it crashed onto the top of his helmet.

The second opponent had gotten up by now. They looked much younger than the first guy. As they ran at me, sword raised, I again stepped into their charge. I had so much adrenaline pumping through my body, I didn't even have to think about it.

I grabbed their wrist with my left hand and braced as they slammed into my back. When I leaned over, their momentum carried them over my back so that I barely had to pull.

They hit the ground hard, as I checked up on the second guy. He sprinted away through the brush and two allies quickly darted through the trees after him. I stood there alone for a minute to catch my breath.

That throw didn't have the best form, but the opponent clearly had the breath knocked out of them. They groaned, rocking slowly from left to right. I began making my way towards the boundary again. I was exhausted, so I didn't jog.

The sounds of fighting were replaced with yelling, and then followed by the conch horn. There were cheers in the distance. I changed course toward the voices, and eventually found my way towards the edge of the forest. Vince emerged from the crowd, and jogged over to me. Based on all the people in blue hair plumes cheering, I'd say we lost.

"Hey, there you are! What happened to the plan?" Vince exclaimed. His forehead was glistened with sweat.

"I saw some people and chased after them. It looked like you had it handled." I gasped out. He laughed, and patted me on the back.

"Next time stick to the plan." He said. "Now tell me what happened."

I gave him one of my first genuine smiles since I'd arrived. It was nice having someone to look after me. Not that I needed it, but having someone you could count on is always a good thing. Needless to say, I divulged every detail of my fight.

 **A/N: Sorry, this one is a bit long. I needed some character development and to settle them in. I plan on picking up the pace soon. If you like it, think I could do a part better, please review. Whether its praise or criticism, reviews are always nice. :)**


	4. Chapter 4

Unknown

I moved my hand to grab a rock, and made sure that it was sturdy. I moved my foot up and pushed off. I was currently The mist at the top was hard to see through, but as I got closer the hollow top became clearer. My foot slipped and I shot my hand up to regain my grip. I cursed myself for being so careless. I looked down to make sure no one noticed.

I looked up and admired the view for a second. The moonlight shone down on San Francisco, reflecting off the buildings. The city looked like a heart pumping blood as the lights of cars pulsed through the streets.

I pulled myself up, continuing my climb. My backpack kept shifting as I moved, making me fix it after a while.. I got to the top, and looked down inside. There were many buildings, forming white specks at the bottom of the crater. New Rome. I could see the Field of Mars, the Tigris, and the Senate House.

I took out my binoculars, and searched for the temples. I found the temple of Apollo on top of the hill. Perfect. I zoomed in so I could see the streets. At this time of night, everyone was asleep. The streets were empty, and there were some .

I took out a notebook from my backpack. I drew a crude diagram of the streets and some landmarks. Stick figures were used for the guards. I starred the temple of Apollo, looking over everything one more time before putting the notebook back in the bag.

Sarah

I laid back on my bed, just laying there. The cabin was quite interesting actually. There were all sorts of cool looking plants decorating the room. They weren't in pots, but rather grew in the walls, and on the window sills. I still couldn't believe I got demeter. I never was into gardening or anything like that.

Someone poked me gently in the shoulder, and I turned my head to look at them. I found myself face to face with a thirteen year old girl. She had straight brown hair just like me. However, she had the most natural, amazing smile.

"Hi, I'm Amanda." She said happily. I sat up, giving her a half smile.

"I'm Sarah." I said. "How long have you been here?"

"Just a couple of seconds." She said. I arched my eyebrows, and she laughed. It was too early for me to process that. "Oh, sorry. I've been coming here for a couple of years."

"Don't you miss home?" I asked. "That seems like a long time to stay here."

"Sometimes, but we get to go home over the winter if we want." She said. That made a little more sense. "So where are you from?"

"Birmingham. It's just outside Detroit. What about you?" I asked.

"I'm from Phoenix, Arizona." She said proudly. If I wasn't face to face with her, I would've sworn she stuck her chin up as she said it.

"Wow that's quite some distance. How do you get back home?" I asked.

"Pegasi are a lot faster than you think." She said with a giggle. She was cute, like a little sister. Well, I guess that's a dumb observation seeing as she _is_ my sister. "So how do you like it here?"

"It's alright."

"Just alright?" She asked. She didn't sound offended, but rather genuinely curious. As if the idea of not thoroughly enjoying this place didn't make any sense.

"Yeah, I guess I was just hoping that when I got claimed, I would find out who I really was. You know, as if somehow finding out who my mother was would fill in all the gaps, and make it all clear. I guess I was setting really high standards, but I've dreamt of finding out who my mother was for a long time." I said. Amanda just stared blankly at me a couple of times. I worried that I said something wrong.

"Wow, that was deep." She said. "I didn't follow most of that."

We both laughed, and talked for a little while.

Thwap. I winced in pain as the wooden blade struck my arm. For a kid a couple of years younger than me, she was a much better swordsman. Our blades thudded against each other as I tried to push her back. She pulled that damn disarming move on me again, sending my sword crashing against the floor.

"You have to teach me that move sometime." I said. She stepped forward with her blade lowered.

"Here, I'll show you." She walked me through the motions. And I got the general gist of what was going on. I was learning from a 13 year old, so it wasn't the most detailed lesson.

I tried it on her a couple of times, with varying degrees of success. I tried it again, and botched it. I stepped back to try again when I felt a hand grasp my shoulder. Nearly jumping out of my skin, I spun around to see who it was.

Jason caught my blade before it hit him in the face. He gave a smile, and gulped. I was really nervous. This wasn't the drill we were supposed to be doing, so I thought we were in trouble.

"Here, let me show you how to do it." He said, letting go of my sword.

He showed me some pointers for a couple of minutes, and made sure to include Amanda. Eventually, he gave us a smile and then gestured for us to move on.

"C'mon, let's get to your drills now."

As we left the arena, we made our way towards the center of the arena. I asked her various questions about the camp, such as weather, events, stuff like that. She told me about the Second Titan War and Giant's War. I can't imagine how it felt to fight in a battle. I'm pretty sure it would scare me witless.

As we were talking, Liam walked by. His gait was brisk and serious, but I got the feeling it was always like that.

"Hey, Amanda, wait one second. HEY LIAM." I yelled out. Liam looked around, very confused. I waved him over, and he walked over. He was a little tense.

"Amanda, this is Liam. Liam, this is Amanda."

"Hey." Liam said. He shook her hand. "Nice to meet you."

He looked around, as if searching for something.

"Sit with us." I said. He shrugged and sat down. There was a moment of awkward silence.

"So where are you from Liam?" Amanda asked. She looked a little uneasy.

"Birmingham. Sarah and I went to the same school." He said. He kind of grimaced at the memory. "What about you?"

"Phoenix." She said. He nodded in acknowledgement.

"You guys both from the Demeter cabin?" He asked.

"Yeah." She said.

"So, do you get any abilities? I'm not too familiar with Demeter." He said. She brightened up at that.

"Yeah. I mean, it's not really useful in battle, but it's useful. We get a natural knack for planting things." She said. She was clearly more proud of that than I was.

"No offense, but it seems pretty simple. How does one plant better?" Liam asked. Amanda grabbed his hand and dragged him off to the Demeter cabin. I followed them, shaking my head as the hyper competitive athlete was toted around by a 13 year old.

The next week went by fairly quickly. Amanda, Liam, and I hung out when we could. Amanda's presence was refreshing. She was just young enough to be living life without focus. Liam on the other hand, acted like he was forty. The dude trained like crazy. He picked up both a hand to hand combat and a sword and shield class outside of his cabin's schedule. He was laser focused, but it was paying off. He was already becoming pretty good.

We were strapping up for capture the flag. This time, we were allies with the Hermes cabin. Liam and I helped each other with our armor. He went with a sword and shield, while I used a spear. I strapped on a shield, and watched Liam help Amanda with her armor. A tall boy with sandy blonde hair approached. Oh, it was that counselor from the Hermes cabin. Um… Vince. That's it.

"Hey, you ready Liam." Vince said. Liam gave him a grin.

"You bet. So what's the plan this time." Liam asked eagerly. Vince went over the plan with all three of us. Looked like us 3 and one more would be guarding the flag. Something about good chemistry or what not. Most of it went over my head, but Liam listened intently.

"Alright, good luck out there you guys. We'll need you in defence Liam, Athena's cabin is tricky." Vince said, and he disappeared into the crowd of demigods around the tables.

"So what's our job?" I asked.

"Guard the flag. Keep an eye out to the east in particular, but we're the last line of defence. Like a goalie." He said. I shrugged. I could live with that.

Our little group and one blonde girl followed a kid from the Ares cabin deep into the woods. We found a nice clearing and set the flag down in the clearing. The Ares kid pointed to where we should stand, and told us what to do depending on where someone came from.

"Don't fuck up." The Ares kid said. He ran off into the woods, and the four of us were left alone in the middle of the woods.

"This is creepy." Amanda said.

"Isn't that right." The blonde girl said. Now that I got a good look at her, I was stunned. She was beautiful. I am not one who usually frets over how I look, but dang. I wouldn't mind looking like her at all. She had stunning blue eyes, and the smoothest facial features. Her teeth and skin were perfect. I had no doubt which cabin she was from. She looked like she belonged on a runway, not in the middle of the woods wearing greek armor.

Liam stepped forward and shook her hand. I had noticed that about him, he greets everyone the same the first time he meets them. It's hilariously formal.

"Hi, I'm Liam."

"Lucy." She said.

"That's Amanda and Sarah." He said pointing to each us. She waved hi, and turned back to him.

"You're that kid that flipped me last week." She said.

"Excuse me?"

"In capture the flag." I was very confused. I guess they had met in capture the flag. Eventually, he realized what she was talking about. The conch horn sounded in the distance, signaling the start.

"Oh, that. Ha, yeah. I had just learned that and it just kinda happened." He said with a laugh. The four of us started talking, and Liam would leave to check around every few minutes. Lucy was actually really nice. She wasn't as bratty as a lot of the Aphrodite girls I've met.

Liam went off to check around again.

"Liam is the kid who hasn't been claimed yet, right?" Lucy softly.

"Yeah." I said.

"I'd say the Athena cabin. Maybe Ares." Amanda said.

"Why do you say that?" Lucy asked. We both kind of chuckled.

"Oh, you'll see." I said. Just as I said that, we heard someone yelling. As it got closer, we heard it more clearly. There was someone, I assume Liam, sprinting towards us.

"GET READY! THEY'RE COMING."

He skidded to a halt in front of us and turned around. All of us readied ourselves, and three kids from the other team appeared. Amanda and I charged the one on the left. I thrust my spear at him, but it clanged off of his shield. He jabbed his spear at Amanda, but she blocked it with her shield. Even with the junior shield she had a hard time lifting it. He charged forward, shield first. Amanda stepped to the side as he smashed into me. I fell on my butt, and my head hit the ground. He started attacking Amanda, who was holding her own.

I looked over and saw Liam sword fighting someone. Him and Lucy switched guys at one point. The guy was really good though, and Liam was losing ground.

Eventually the guys got his blade inside Liam's shield. With a flick of the wrist, he disarmed Liam. Instead of retreating, Liam pulled the guys shield aside with one hand and tackled him.

I jumped to my feet, deciding to go help Amanda. I smashed guy in the back with my shield and caught him in the breastplate with my spear. He grunted in pain, responding with a spear aimed at my face. It deflected off my shield and caught me in my forehead. Luckily, my helmet kept me from having a lobotomy.

However, it hurt like hell, jerking my head back with a lot of force. Amanda avenged me by sweeping his from under him with her spear. She pushed the point against his throat, and he dropped his weapon.

I got up and saw Liam had gotten his sword back. Lucy helped him chase the third guy off. The second was gone. Amanda kicked her guy's spear away and he ran off into the woods. We clapped each other on the back and them Liam clammed up. He swore under his breath.

The flag was gone.

I saw it weaving in between the trees and we sprinted after the guy. Liam ditched his shield and sped ahead of us. When we caught up with him, he was fighting two people, one of whom had the flag.

He did a good job of herding the guy with the flag, passively circling around to cut them off. We circled around them like we were told to do. The guy without the flag was crazy fast with his spear. We could barely lower our shields without it screaming towards our face. Liam had to back up about 5 feet since he didn't have a shield.

The duo was back to back, right where we wanted them. We started to close in, poking passively at them. They started to feel cornered, becoming more and more aggressive.

I jabbed at him and lost my balance a little bit. Time seemed to slow down as the guard's spear reached for my neck. It was like trying to move underwater. My vision was taken over by spear head speeding towards me.

A shape slammed into him and I saw Liam ram his shoulder against the guy's shield. Liam spun around, slamming his right elbow into the other kid's forehead.

He crumpled and Liam followed him down. We took the flag, guarding it while the other guy ran. As he left, we looked down at Liam. His eyes were open at least, but he looked a little confused.

"Man, I'm really dizzy." He said.

"You must've hit your head when you fell." I said. He nodded slowly. We helped him up together, but he was still a bit wobbly. He was dripping with so much sweat, we wiped our hands against our armor after helping him up. We planted the flag in the ground where we were standing. "Thanks for that Liam, I was afraid he was going to get me there."

"No problem." He smiled weakly at me.

"Yeah, he has a history of being a little rough. He's injured a couple of kids." Lucy said. In the distance, the conch horn blew. I guess we won again.

"Speaking of brutal, I'm pretty sure that kid's out cold." I said. We stared at him for a minute, then decide to carry him back. Liam slowly followed behind us.

Unknown

I walked down the tunnel as cars rushed past me. I had to squeeze against the wall for some of the bigger cars. The tunnel was illuminated with stale yellow lights as the grinding of rubber on asphalt echoed through the tunnel.

I stopped about 10 feet short of the tunnel exit. When there was a gap in traffic, I ran out of the tunnel and immediately turned towards the divider. There were two guards in full roman garb and purple T-shirts.

I slashed the first one in the throat with my blade before the other guard even noticed me. Sidestepping the thrust of his spear, I slid my blade through his neck. I pulled the blade out as he collapsed.

They both laid on their backs, clutching at their throats and coughing on their own blood.

I opened the door and walked down the entrance tunnel to New Rome. I didn't take time to admire the view as I entered the valley. I snuck through the river, and in no time I was creeping through the streets.

The whole city was deadly silent as everyone slept in peace. If only they knew what was coming. I pulled out a page from my notebook, studying the map. The streets were organized in a perfect grid, which actually made it harder to find my way around. Every street looked the same, meaning I had to carefully count how many I passed.

A flicker of purplish light appeared at the end of the street, and I flattened myself against a wall. It was a _lare_. When the _lare_ passed, Iresumed stalking my way through the streets. My eyes were peeled for more _lares_ or demigods.

Eventually, I started passing temples. The temples were a little less compact, with well kept lawns surrounding them. All that I really paid attention to was the temple of Apollo at the top of the hill. Using the other temples as cover, I snuck towards the temple of Apollo. There were two guards in front, and that seemed to be it.

I walked around the back of the circular temple, followed it around. I slowed down as the guards entered my view. Grabbing the hilt firmly, I broke into a sprint.

I ran up to the closer guard, and slit his throat from behind while I held him up. I pushed the body into the other guard, knocking him over. Before the kid even knew what was going on, my blade was halfway through his windpipe.

The spray of blood caught me in the face, and I didn't even bother to wipe it off. I finally walked into temple, admiring the magnitude of the temple. There were purple banners hanging from the ceiling, torches bolted to the pillars and all that. But most importantly, there was a massive altar opposite the entrance. It was flanked by braziers which illuminated the altar in the otherwise dim room.

The actual altar itself was a long table, arced to fit against the back wall. It had loose papers strewn all over it, each one crammed with random writing. But most importantly, in the center were twelve book stands. Nine of them had books in them, open to random pages.

The Sibylline books. Books containing countless prophecies, some of which were yet to be fulfilled. I threw them into my backpack, and started gathering up the papers. The papers were the attempts to reconstruct the books.

I dumped the papers into the fire in the braziers. I was busy. I didn't have time to search through hundreds of prophecies, most of which were either already fulfilled or had no relevance to me. The flames grew as they began to devour at least a couple years of work. I gave a grin. They will be furious. I gave a grin at that thought.

I snuck back out. That was a little easier. Defences are made to keep people from coming in, not to keep them in. As I walked down the tunnels, I was bursting with joy. I just stole 9 volumes of the Sibylline books. They are irreplaceable, but they're gonna have to try and replace them.

Bummer that I didn't actually get to fight anybody, but I needed to be quiet. I stepped over the bodies in front of the door, and let out a deep breath.

Thompson

"PRAETOR!" A voice yelled. "PRAETOR!"

I snapped awake, reaching immediately for my sword. The doors to my room burst open and I dashed to my feet, blade ready. Austin, our pontifex maximus, stood in front of me breathing heavily.

"Thompson...Our work...gone...in fire" He said in between breaths. I stepped forward, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Calm down. Use sentences, what's going on?" I asked. Austin caught his breath, and straightened up.

"The sibylline books. They're gone."

I quickly sheathed my sword, then wrapped the belt around my waist. Sprinting out the door, I skidded down the hall. I burst out of the doors to the Praetors' villa. As I hustled through the streets, the shops and barracks flew by.

The small trickle of people in the streets parted, watching me sprint past them. Some gave alarmed looks, while others merely looked confused. Everyone knew that if a praetor was in such a hurry, that nothing good was going on.

I couldn't seem to get there fast enough, but eventually I made it to the temples. There were four guards in front of the temple of Apollo. As I flew up the steps, the guards stepped aside to let me in. I took a minute to look around.

There were two bodies on the floor of the temple, pushed to the side so as to be out of sight. One had their throat cut open and the other's T-shirt was stained black with blood. The braziers that usually stood next to the altar were knocked over. A splash of half burnt papers and ash surrounded the braziers. There were priests of Apollo crowded around them, sifting through what was left of the papers. Most notably though, all of the book stands were empty.

"What happened here?" I demanded. To say I was angry was an understatement. Those books were the product of over a decade of work. Ella and Tyson worked very hard to put those together. A priest stood up and approached me.

"Someone snuck in last night and stole the books. They burned all the spare papers in the brazier." He said. His worry was displayed all over his face.

"Is it savable?" I asked. He shrugged his shoulders gingerly.

"To be honest, only some of it. A lot of the prophecies are fulfilled or are very minor." He shifted uneasily. "But that's the least of _your_ problems."

I raised an eyebrow at that.

"Someone didn't destroy the books themselves, they stole them. They have countless prophecies at their disposal. Not all of them are useless, but they now have infinitely more information than we have." He said.

"And clearly they're not very friendly." He nodded in agreement at that. "What time did you find them?"

"First thing in the morning. I'm guessing they'd been there for some time."

"Alright, just keep this quiet. If anyone asks, tell them we're not sure what's going on yet." I said. That should buy me enough time to figure out the jist of this. At the very least, I have time to prepare a speech. Oh crap, I almost forgot. "Hey."

He turned around.

"We still have it though right."

"Austin memorized it as a security measure." He said. That was a relief. If we had lost _that,_ it would have been terrible.

I walked back to the villa. The people in the streets had continued their daily lives, walking from place to place as if nothing was wrong. I knew it wouldn't take long for the rumors to spread. That really limits the time to write the speech.

The villa consisted of two side by side rooms on the second floor, with a shared living room on the bottom. I pushed open the double doors, and let out a sigh. The living room consisted of a kitchen, a couch and a TV. On the couch sat a girl with long brown hair, sifting through a collection of papers.

It was Victoria, the other Praetor.

I sat next to her and looked over her shoulder. The papers were filled top to bottom with paragraphs of writing. I read the top, which labeled them as witness statements.

"I don't know who it could be." She said without taking her eyes off the papers. She laid her head back, letting loose a long, drawn out sigh. "It has to be a demigod; no monster could get past the barrier."

"I'll get in contact with the Greeks." I said. Victoria nodded in approval.

"Keep it vague." She warned. I rolled my eyes at that. Running up to my room, I pulled out a notebook and pencil. I sat at the edge of my bed. My pencil bobbed against my temple as I thought about how to word it.

I finished the letter, and walked to my window. I pulled it open, then whistled as loud as I could. A large eagle attempted to land through the window, but couldn't fit. It hovered in front of my window while I tied the letter to its foot. It flew off and I could only hope the Greeks had an idea what was going on.

 **A/N: Hey look at that! Plot! So I want this story to be a bit darker than the PJO series, but if it gets too dark, let me know.**

 **As always, reviews, favorites, follows very much appreciated.**


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